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On August 30, 2016, the Patent Office issued U.S. Patent No. 9,430,468, titled; “Online peer review and method.” The owner of this patent is none other than Elsevier, the giant academic publisher. When it first applied for the patent, Elsevier sought very broad claims that could have covered a wide range of online peer review. Fortunately, by the time the patent actually issued, its claims had been narrowed significantly. So, as a practical matter, the patent will be difficult to enforce. But we still think the patent is stupid, invalid, and an indictment of the system….

Before discussing the patent, it is worth considering why Elsevier might want a government granted monopoly on methods of peer review. Elsevier owns more than 2000 academic journals. It charges huge fees and sometimes imposes bundling requirements whereby universities that want certain high profile journals must buy a package including other publications. Universities, libraries, and researchers are increasingly questioning whether this model makes sense.

Avoid Elsevier. This is a world that should no longer exist.

The quality of Wikipedia entries is a topic of vigorous debate, and even with its semiformal internal peer review process, the small size of the active medical community means fewer than 1% of medical articles have passed review. Yet medical information on Wikipedia is widely accessed. About 5 billion page views were logged for its medical content in 2013. Of medical students, 92% to 94% use it, and 50% to 70% of practicing physicians report also doing so [15,20,21]. A 2009 survey of UK junior physicians found that 70% use Wikipedia on a weekly basis, making it the most used content provider, ahead of eMedicine.com, which was used by nearly 50% [22].

reestheskin.so

reestheskin.so is mainly about education and medicine, and how these domains intersect. I think Roger Schank has it spot on when he says: ‘There are only two things wrong with the education system (i) what we teach and (ii) how we teach it'.